Viking
Viking is a character focused on damage negation and high damage output, having Armour which she gains at the start of each level, which can either take a hit without letting health be affected, or used as a high damage, straight line blast of damage, which scales in damage as you level up. Features When you play as Viking, you spawn with the Viking Axe, a medium ranged melee weapon that deals 12 points of damage per swing. You gain one armour at the beginning of each stage, which will negate one hit, no matter how much damage it does. Viking Great Axe spawns when you loop as Viking. Special Armour Strike - Viking can use one of her Armour pieces offensively, dealing huge damage to the enemies in a straight line of the cursor. The damage done scales with level, and can easily kill most bosses. It can hit enemies multiple times. The Strike seems to home, making it very useful in loops. * The damage per tick 'for Armour Strike can be calculated with ('Player Level)*5 * This means at Level 1, Armour Strike deals 5 damage per tick, and at Level 6, Armour Strike deals 30 damage per tick. Throne Butt Viking's Throne Butt increases your maximum amount of Armour from 2 to 3, and doubles the amount of armour you get per Level, from 1 to 2. This means you can afford to use more Armour Strikes per level, or negate more damage. Ultra Mutations Mega Armour Strike - Triple Armour Strike, Armour Strike Destroys Projectiles Armour Up - Gain One Extra Armour at the End of Each Level, Increase Armour Max by 2 Cold Hearth - Armour Strike Freezes Enemies, When you have no more armour you can use 2 health to armour strike. Blank Armour - Whenever you lose a piece of armour, all projectiles are cleared off the screen and 100 damage is dealt to all enemies on screen Gameplay Viking plays very well as a melee character, allowing her Armor to soak up hits for her and being guaranteed to get her Viking Great Axe upon reaching Loop. However, a more risk-reward playstyle focusing on her Armor Strike is also possible. Melee - A melee build with Viking focuses largely around the Rage mutation. the Rage mutation provides a reload speed and drop rate increase with an accuracy decrease every time an enemy is killed. Normally, this bonus is lost when your character takes damage. However, with Viking the Rage bonus is only lost once she takes health ''damage. This allows her to be hit multiple times per level without losing the bonus. Along with that, the reload speed bonus provided by Rage greatly increases the rate at which you can swing melee weapons, allowing for her to deflect almost all enemy projectiles that near her. The reload speed bonus also provides a considerable increase in damage output, making up for the low fire rate of most late game melee weapons. Once Viking enters Loop, she will also find the Viking Great Axe where she spawns, guaranteeing her a strong melee weapon. Useful Mutations: * ''Rage - Integral to the build, providing a large increase in drop rate and fire rate once enough kills have been gained. Due to the fixed nature of melee, the accuracy debuff is also negated on all melee weapons except Shovels, where the spread of the 3 arcs is increased. * Throne Butt - Allows her to regain an additional armor every level as well as increasing her max armor to 3. This makes it easier for Viking to maintain her Rage bonus while also increasing her overall survivability. * Long Arms ''- increases the range of all melee weapons, allowing her to dispatch enemies from further away and reflect projectiles in a larger area. *''Euphoria - Slows all enemy projectiles and provides a short period of invincibility after getting hit. This makes it easier to reflect enemy projectiles and help prevents losing armor and extremely quickly to rapidly firing enemies *''Trigger Fingers ''- removes 40% of remaining reload time on both weapons every kill. Allows an additional increase in fire rate. Also helps Viking regain her Rage bonus should it be lost. *''Sharp Stress ''- Increases reload speed the lower the user's health is, while also dealing damage to all enemies on screen equal to twice the hp lost. While useless as long as the Rage bonus is maintained, it makes it easier to regain it should it be lost. *''Scarier Face ''- Allows melee weapons to kill stronger enemies in fewer swings, decreasing the risk towards the player. *''Impact Wrists ''- Melee weapons hurl enemies with considerable force when they die, damaging and even killing enemies far beyond the range of the actual swing. *''Laser Brain ''- while this provides no benefit to some melee weapons, many of what are commonly considered the "best" melee weapons benefit from it. These include the Laser Sword, Energy Screwdriver, Energy Sword, Energy Hammer, Energy Shovel, Lightning Screwdriver, Lightning Hammer, and Lightning Shovel, as well as possibly the Trident. For all of these, the damage and range of the weapons are increased. *''Extra Feet ''- Allows Viking to close the distance between her and distant enemies quickly, reducing the amount of time those enemies have to fire at her. *''Hammerhead ''- Allows her to "burrow" into walls if needed to avoid attacks from enemies whose projectiles she cannot deflect. *''Back Muscle ''- provides additional capacity for the large amount of ammo generated by the increase in drop rate from Rage Suggested Ultra Mutation: Armor Up. * Armor Up - allows Viking to regain an additional armor every level as well as increasing her max armor by 2. This provides additional survivability and makes the Rage bonus harder to lose. Useless Mutations: * Boiling Veins ''- Viking's Armor completely nullifies the damage of explosives, and usually when she has armor she is also at full health, meaning it is usually inactive. * ''Eagle Eyes ''- Melee is fixed, meaning it is unaffected by the accuracy bonus. * ''Lucky Shot ''- most melee weapons do not use ammo, leaving the ability without purpose. Rage also generates a very large quantity of ammo. * ''Rabbit Paw ''- Rage generates more than enough ammo, and most runs end too quickly once it is lost for the increase in health packs to be of use. * ''Recycle Gland ''- Rage generates more than enough ammo for most weapons, largely negating the usefulness of this mutation. * ''Bloodlust, Rhino Skin, Second Stomach, Strong Spirit, and Tough Shell ''- once health damage has been taken and the Rage bonus is lost, most runs end very quickly due to the loss of the player's main source of both damage output and defense. This leaves these abilities with little benefit. Armor Strike In theory, you could also make a build meant to fully utilize Viking's Armor Strike, allowing for frequent use in order to clear large swaths of enemies easily. This build would focus around taking advantage of Viking's ''Cold Hearth Ultra Mutation to allow for Armor Strikes to be done using HP instead of Armor, and then making ample use of mutations like Bloodlust and Second Stomach to restore any HP lost. Useful Mutations: * Bloodlust ''- would allow Viking to easily restore her HP, possibly even allowing her to fully negate the HP cost of her Armor Strike. * ''Boiling Veins ''- as Viking would be spending a considerable amount of time at low health and without armor, this is necessary to prevent being killed in a single shot by explosives * ''Euphoria ''- the invincibility period this provides helps nullify the dangers of enemies who fire extremely large quantities of attacks in a short time, and also makes it easier to avoid enemy projectiles, helping keep Viking's HP up. * ''Insomnia ''- Viking will often be entering levels with less than full hp, leaving her at considerable risk to enemies near the spawn point. This will give Viking a chance to clear herself some "breathing room" and possibly even heal herself back to full health through the use of other mutations like ''Bloodlust. * Plutonium Hunger ''- the range of Viking's Armor Strike is quite large, meaning the majority of the rads and drops from distant enemies will fall too far away from her to be collected easily. This will allow her to collect a larger quantity of Rads, Ammo, and HP restoratives before they disappear. * ''Rabbit Paw ''- increases the quantity of HP and Ammo dropped from enemies, allowing for more HP to be restored and Viking's Armor Strike to be used more frequently * ''Rage ''- the increase in Drop Rate provided by Rage will increase how many HP pickups spawn, allowing Viking to restore her HP easily, allowing more frequent use of her Armor Strike. (While ''Rage is normally lost when damage is taken, it is not lost when HP is spent in order to activate a character's ability; this allows the bonus to remain even when HP is spent to activate her Armor Strike.) * Rhino Skin ''- increases Max HP by 4, allowing for Viking to make additional uses of her Armor Strike before reaching a health level that puts her in considerable danger. * ''Second Stomach ''- doubles the amount of HP that is restored by HP pickups, allowing for 2 uses of the Armor Strike for each pickup rather than one. * ''Sharp Stress ''- whenever Viking spends HP to use her Armor Strike, she will also deal 4 damage to all enemies on the screen. Along with this, she will frequently be at relatively low HP, allowing her a boost to her fire rate. * ''Strong Spirit ''- frequent use of her Armor Strike will leave her at lower HP than normal and leave her without Armor, meaning that she is at a much greater risk of death than usual. This helps mitigate that, and due to the fact that she gets Armor every level, she gets a few extra hits should she have to proceed to the next level without having been able to restore much HP; This greatly increases her chances of survival. * ''Throne Butt ''- Increases the amount of Armor gained every level by 1 and increases her Armor max to 3, allowing her to use her Armor Strike twice per level without it costing her HP. * ''Tough Shell ''- decreases how much damage is taken from enemies, allowing for a few extra hits to be taken from enemies without dying. * ''Trigger Fingers ''- Due to that fact that a well placed Armor Strike can easily kill a large quantity of enemies, every use of the ability will almost completely reload both of the player's weapons. This allows for Viking to make frequent use of any weapons she has that have an extremely high Reload Time. * ''Impact Wrists ''- will allow Viking's Armor Strikes to deal additional damage to enemies both due to the fact that any enemies killed will be sent flying, possibly damaging other enemies, but also due to the fact that frozen enemies release debris when they are killed or when they unfreeze; the damage of these debris are minimal normally, but are greatly boosted by this mutation. Required Ultra Mutation: ''Cold Hearth * ''Cold Hearth ''is necessary in order for this "build" to work. It causes Viking's Armor Strike to freeze any enemies it hits, and also allows her to use her Armor Strike even when she is out of Armor, instead costing 2 HP. This allows her to make repeated use of her Armor Strike, as long as she has the HP to do so.